World War II · Film · 1961
The Guns of Navarone
A small Allied commando team disguised as Greek fishermen must scale a sheer cliff and destroy two giant German guns on an Aegean island before a Royal Navy flotilla sails past to rescue 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 1 places.
Stop 1: Navarone, a fictional island inspired by Leros
Key location
Shipwrecked below the island's cliffs, the team climbs ashore, links up with two resistance women and closes in on the fortress guns.
What really happened
Navarone and Keros are fictional, but Alistair MacLean's novel was inspired by the Dodecanese campaign of autumn 1943. After Italy's armistice in September, British forces occupied Kos, Leros and other Italian-held islands hoping to draw Turkey into the war, but without air cover they were quickly overwhelmed: Kos fell on 3-4 October and Leros, after a German air and sea assault, on 16 November 1943, with thousands of British and Italian soldiers captured.
The real coastal guns on Leros were 152 mm naval pieces, nothing like the radar-directed monsters of the film, and there was no dramatic rescue fleet. Greek resistance fighters, British commandos and the Special Boat Service did raid Aegean islands throughout 1943 and 1944, which gives the story its backdrop.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- The Guns of Navarone
- Directed by
- J. Lee Thompson
- Countries
- United Kingdom, United States
- Languages
- English, Greek, German
- Released
- 1961
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Mediterranean & Africa
- Themes
- Combat
- Resistance
